“Oops,” she whispered, when he stuck his head out into the night air.
“What are you doing?”
“Shhh. Not so loud.”
“You want me to be quiet?” he whisper-shouted. “You just shattered a window.”
She scrunched her nose. “It always works in the movies. How was I supposed to know the storm windows were in?” Her bottom lip protruded in a slight pout.
A grin threatened to pull Anders’s mouth skyward, but he forced it to remain passive, remembering his exasperating search for her. “Where were you all day?”
“Come here. I want to show you something.”
He narrowed his eyes, irritated she didn’t answer his question. Not only had he been waiting around for her all day, but now—in the middle of the night—she just expected him to jump when she said so. And he was even more irritated that he knew he was going to.
“It’s really late.”
“Are you a senior citizen?” she said, still whispering like they were children playing a game of telephone. “It’s not even midnight.”
“Fine. Give me five minutes.”
“Hurry,” she urged.
He was downstairs in two.
* * *
* * *
—
Three differences stood out in Anders’s second ride to Graver’s Beach in the span of seven hours: (1) He wasn’t alone. (2) Moonlight, instead of the sun, lit the path in front of him. (3) Despite the cold night air, his thighs burned like fire with the exertion of trying to keep up with Piper.
“Why are we going so fast?” he huffed, the wind tearing through his sweatshirt as if it were made of tissue paper.
“I don’t want to miss it.”
“Miss what?”
“You’ll see.”
Anders suppressed a growl, growing progressively vexed at Piper’s secrecy—and his willingness to go along with it.
After they dropped their bikes, Piper tossed Anders a flashlight and they took off, picking their way through the rocks on the beach, crabs skittering sideways out of their bright rays of light, until they finally reached a sandy stretch. Piper abruptly stopped and put her hand out.
“Turn off your flashlight. It’ll confuse them.”
“Them? Oh, God,” Anders breathed. Knowing her, it was a colony of cockroaches or a cluster of . . . maggots. Or something else equally horrifying.
After their eyes adjusted to the darkness lit up only by the moon, Piper scanned the sand. “There!” she said. “Come on.”
Anders tentatively followed at her heels and stopped beside her, mimicking her movement—bent at the waist and peering down into a large patch of sand that looked like it had been messed about by an enthusiastic child with a shovel.
“Shoot. They’re gone,” she said. “We missed it.”
“What did we miss?” Anders whispered.
Piper straightened her spine. “It was a sea turtle nest. We haven’t had one out here for two years. And then I found this one a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure, though; it’s really late. They usually lay their eggs in May and hatch late summer. So I don’t know if the warmer water messed them up or this mom got lost or what. I’ve been keeping an eye on it, and when I saw the movement earlier tonight, I knew.”
Anders stared at her as it dawned on him that she was at Graver’s Beach earlier this evening—had he just missed her? How had he not seen her? He opened his mouth to say something, just as movement in the sand caught his eye. “Wait—what’s that?”
He squinted as Piper leaned back over and they both watched with bated breath, the grains of sand tumbling to the side, as if pouring out of a broken hourglass. Suddenly, something darker than the sand protruded from the surface. A tiny turtle nose, and then, on either side, tiny turtle flippers.
Piper let out an appropriately tiny squeal. Once it was free of the sand, the turtle struggled to orient itself. When it finally did, it started pushing forward on the sand with its flippers.
“Oh, no, it’s listing left. Go straight,” she urged, as if the turtle understood English. “It’s got to make it to the ocean to survive.”
“Should we pick it up?”
“No! We can’t touch it or it won’t imprint. Give it space.”
Anders had no idea what imprinting was, but he stepped back. The turtle’s path skewed more left. “Wait!” Piper said. “I have an idea. Go stand at the ocean and turn on your flashlight!”
Anders did, and whether it was the beam of his light, or Piper’s continual gentle prodding and encouragement, the turtle finally found its way down the beach to the water, until it was swept away in a gentle wave.
“Oh my gosh!” Piper said, throwing herself at Anders. Startled, he wrapped his arms around her tiny body, which he could feel vibrating with pure delight, and then he was further startled when he realized he didn’t want to let go. She stepped out of his embrace, her face completely flushed with pleasure. “That was amazing!”
Anders would have responded in the affirmative—that it was absolutely amazing—but he found he could scarcely breathe, he was so mesmerized by the sight. Not of the turtle making it to the ocean, but Piper’s pure joy. Adrenaline pulsed through his veins and his brain scrambled.
“It was,” he finally said, finding his voice. “It was amazing.”
“Right?” she said, her face so bright, the moon paled in comparison.
And then a thought hit Anders as hard as if Piper had picked up a rock and leveled it at his head. Piper left the turtle nest when she saw them hatching and came all the way back to town . . . for him. “Why did you come get me?” he asked. “Why didn’t you bring Tom?”
She frowned, and Anders instantly hated himself for asking. “He was asleep,” she said, but Anders could have sworn that her eyes shifted before she spoke. And he thought this might be it: an entrée to gently press her and make her face the fact that Tom wasn’t actually in her house. Asleep or otherwise.
“I was asleep, too,” he said carefully, while staring intently at her face. And this time he wasn’t imagining it—she squirmed uncomfortably, as if her brain was overloaded.
He knew he should change the subject, that if he pushed too hard, it could agitate her unnecessarily and undo the small progress he hoped he was making. But he was like a dog with a bone and didn’t want to let it drop. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but she beat him to it. “Let’s go make sure there aren’t any other turtles left.”